It’s not only been the Stampede City blanketed too often in the days which have followed.

Their playoff hopes are being buried deeper and deeper because of all the nights the Flames have been road-kill, and it’s reached a point you can’t help but wonder whether they’re in a vicious circle with no hope of getting out.

“We’re not reading into it as much as you are, I don’t think,” said Flames winger Curtis Glencross. “If we read everything and tried to be contradicted every time, we’re not going anywhere.

“We’ve got to worry about our next game. We’ve got two more games on this road trip and need two more wins.”

Next on the docket for the Flames, who had a day off Tuesday, will be the Nashville Predators, followed by a clash in Columbus against the Blue Jackets.

Calgary heads into Thursday’s tilt in Music City on a 0-6-1 skid away from the Saddledome.

By comparison, the Flames have a six-game home winning streak.

As baffling as it is a team can be so good at home and so bad on the road — the Flames have been outscored 28-10 during this run and been greatly outclassed in most of those games — the causes aren’t as difficult to figure out as the riddle of the Sphynx.

“Our starts and our mindset at the start of the game has to change,” stated Flames defenceman Jay Bouwmeester succinctly.

Improving defensive play wouldn’t hurt, either, which Bouwmeester had no trouble alluding to.

“It doesn’t have to be pretty,” he said. “At home, we’ve had boring games, but that’s the mindset we have to have on the road, get pucks deep and make it hard on the other team.”

That porous defensive play has been the biggest culprit in the team’s inconsistent play, not only from game to game but period to period.

“That’s the way things have been on the road and, at times, at home. Lately, at home, we’ve gotten off to better starts, and that’s got us off on the right foot,” Bouwmeester said. “(In Dallas), we were down 3-0, and that’s a team that just got whacked 8-1, so we’ve got to get a jump on them early.”

Obviously, the goal against the Predators, who are returning home on the heels of a disappointing five-game road trip which included a loss in Calgary, will be to get that quick jump.

If that doesn’t happen for the Flames, though, you can’t help but wonder whether things will fall apart.

After all, when the going got tough for this team away from home, it’s looked fragile.

“There shouldn’t be (fragility),” Bouwmeester replied. “Most guys in here have been playing at this level long enough and faced that sort of adversity almost on a nightly basis. You should be able to deal with it.

“We haven’t done a great job of dealing with it and have to hope it gets better.”

Win a couple of games to end this trip, and things will become sunnier.

“With every loss, because of the position we got ourselves in the start of the year, it’s been magnified. But we can’t get caught up in that,” Bouwmeester said of the team’s woes and pending uncertainty with trade-deadline day two weeks away.

“These are big games. You talk about not being able to make up ground and catch teams, but you’ve got to win games against the teams that are right there. This trip is huge.

It’s not only been the Stampede City blanketed too often in the days which have followed.

Their playoff hopes are being buried deeper and deeper because of all the nights the Flames have been road-kill, and it’s reached a point you can’t help but wonder whether they’re in a vicious circle with no hope of getting out.

“We’re not reading into it as much as you are, I don’t think,” said Flames winger Curtis Glencross. “If we read everything and tried to be contradicted every time, we’re not going anywhere.

“We’ve got to worry about our next game. We’ve got two more games on this road trip and need two more wins.”

Next on the docket for the Flames, who had a day off Tuesday, will be the Nashville Predators, followed by a clash in Columbus against the Blue Jackets.